“Dead.”
“Too bad. I wanted the pleasure of killing him myself.”
“I was forced to cooperate,” Bandele said in a quiet voice.
“If you were a true Human, you would have suffered whatever the grungies wanted to do with you, but you chose to betray the Union. You’re weak, Bandele, just like Tibilov was.”
Bandele sat up against the wall. “You’ve betrayed everything for which the Union stands. We’re supposed to protect Hominin life, not snuff it out.”
Emboto shrugged. “Doesn’t fit with the economic imperative, Bandele. The Chelux are far better at working in the ecologically damaged areas of the planet. The Union has poured trillions into this shithole to repair the damage wrought by the Snirr, but our dear Consul decided it just wasn’t worth it. But the ore deposits on this rock are the best and purest for thousands of light years; they must be exploited for the greater glory of the Union.”
Bandele coughed. “So, the Union is breaking all of its promises to the Ral: to repair the ecological damage on the planet caused by the Snirr; to grant the Ral Senate World status; to invest in the economy of the planet; the guarantees of training and jobs and prosperity.”
“The Ral are to be displaced, Bandele. The Consul wants them to immigrate to other worlds in the Union, but most of the grungies are too stupid to figure out they’re useless, so we’ll either force them to move, or kill them.”
“What about robots? Can’t we exploit the mines on Jala with robots?”
Emboto raised her rifle. “The planet’s name is Akaisha, grungie lover. Do you understand?”
Bandele held up his hands. “All right! Akaisha, then. Can’t we use automation? Let the Ral stay and share in some of the profits?”
She smiled and lowered her rifle. “Too expensive. The Chelux really are amazing creatures, Bandele. Their carapace allows them to withstand high radiation and chemically toxic environments. They will thrive and breed on Akaisha, and we don’t need to worry about such niceties as schools, markets, culture, and standard of living. The eggheads can teach them what they need to know to work the ore deposits, and they require little in the way of housing or comforts. How did that one economist put it?” She took on a mocking academic tone. “The Chelux will breed quickly in the planet’s environment with little cost input beyond their initial transport and settlement.” She smirked. “He figures a seed population of a few hundred thousand should do the trick, but we’re planning on shipping in millions. Far cheaper than coddling these useless grungies.”
“So it’s all bullshit, then. The Hominin Union? The Reunification and Conciliation Act? Defending Hominin life?”
“Economically, the Ral are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible. Forget your sanctimony about struggling Hominin races. The only thing that matters is the Union, and Her Majesty will sacrifice what she sees fit in order to further its glory. But I prefer to leave all this to the eggheads. I have my orders: to root out and eliminate dissent, and you know what? I love my job!”
“We’ve got an incoming aircraft, Colonel,” someone called out. “Coming up fast from the south. It does not answer our hails.”
Emboto looked at Bandele and swore, and climbed the steps back up to Operations. “Someone put cuffs on that traitor.”
One of the security personnel stepped forward and pulled Bandele to his feet, and led him up to Operations. They pushed him into a chair and cuffed him.
Bandele looked around. He had spent months here when stationed at the outpost: a large space with a dozen terminals and consoles and large screens and holographic projectors.
“It’s not an aircraft, it’s a spacecraft,” Emboto said, leaning over a console. “Navy says it just ran the blockade. If it’s a tech smuggler, what the hell is it doing here? There are no resistance hideouts within a thousand kilometers of this place.”
Bandele leaned back in the chair and laughed. Somehow, he just knew it was Beckenbaur. The long years of waiting had finally ended.
“What the hell are you laughing at?” Emboto asked.
“It’s for me! It’s coming for me!”
Beckenbaur
“Dr. Beckenbaur?”
Beckenbaur opened his eyes. The mattress he laid on was lumpy and warm, but Dr. Ferrel, who laid beside him, was soft and warm. The bunk was not large enough for both of them, so they had to spoon.
“Dr. Beckenbaur.” It was Captain Talbot on the ship’s intercom.
“Yes, Captain.” He rolled off the bunk and stood naked on the cold deck. “Have we arrived? I didn’t feel the shunt.”
“Not quite yet, Doctor,” Talbot replied, “but I’ll need you up on the command deck, soon.”
“Right away, Captain.” Beckenbaur stretched, and then started to dress.
“Hans?” Ferrel rolled over and rubbed her eyes, her long blonde hair spread out over the pillow. She looked at him, her eyes wide, blue pools.
“We’ve arrived, Heather. I’ll go up. You stay here.” He finished tying his boots, stepped out of the stateroom, and slid the panel shut. They had traveled twenty-six days and almost forty-one hundred light years since shunting from Corona Station. They had stopped once, at a small colony, to purchase food and technical supplies, but Talbot warned they needed to fill up on antimatter sometime after Akaisha.
He walked down the corridor and grabbed a few protein bars as he passed through the galley. He finished eating one as he climbed the ladder to the command deck. He topped the ladder and poked his head into the command deck, a curved space with three operations stations. Captain Caroline Talbot sat at the center station, a large forward facing chair in the middle of the command deck. Two flight crew sat at stations in front of Talbot. The front view portal also served as a HUD, a colorful schematic of a star system imposed on the portal, showing a primary star and the surrounding orbits of several planets.
“Captain,” Beckenbaur said.
The chair turned and Talbot looked at Beckenbaur. “We’re a couple of hours out, Doctor. We’re going to come in hard and fast just outside Akaisha’s hyperspace limit.” She turned in her chair and looked at him “You do know what is happening on Akaisha, I hope?”
“Yes I do, Captain. I was stationed there for over a year.”
“You’re kidding me!”
“No. I worked for a sub-contractor for the Exploration Service, surveying the massive rare-earth bearing carbonatite deposits.” He looked at her and raised his eyebrows. “I am a geologist.”
“Then you know there is an Imperial fleet blockading Akaisha to prevent any authorized planet fall or flight.”
“Yes, but you said you were a tech smuggler. I thought this sort of thing was easy. I have hired the right ship, haven’t I?”
Talbot’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, I am a tech smuggler, and no, this is never easy, and I haven’t made the Akaisha run before. You challenge me, Doctor.”
“I’m paying you well.”
“That you are. You said you needed to pick someone up on Akaisha. Who is so important that we need to cross an Imperial naval blockade?”
“You probably don’t know him. His name is Captain William Osatari...”
“Bandele?” Talbot cried.
“Yes, Captain,” Beckenbaur replied, surprised at Talbot’s reaction. “He was the commander of the Bering during the mission to the Anuvi system.” Heather had been overjoyed when he told her.
“Why didn’t you say so?”
“I had no idea you knew him, Captain.”
“Knew him? He commanded my cadet cruise, back when I was in the Exploration Service; he taught many of my courses at the Academy.” She looked past him, as if remembering something. “Too bad Kessler isn’t here.”
“Sorry, Captain. Who?”
“Never mind. All right, I’m all in, Doctor, and I’ll do this one for free. What is Bandele doing on Akaisha?”
“It was part of his sentence for losing the Bering. After he had completed his sentence, the USS wouldn’t let
him leave Akaisha because of what he knew...”
“About the Anuvi system,” Talbot said. “Those rat fucking bastards! Akaisha’s an entire planet, Doctor. Do you know where we can find him?”
“My entire purpose for taking the contract on Akaisha was to speak with him. We made arrangements; I know where to pick him up, but it’s been a long time. I hope he’s still alive.”
“So do I, Doctor.”
She turned back to the HUD and tapped a few keys. Two images of a planet appeared, one each for the eastern and western hemispheres. The planet was Class 1, and had five large continents and several long island chains. Beckenbaur saw ocean covered approximately sixty-four percent of the surface. The image zoomed into a large continent in the northern reaches of the western hemisphere. The image lit up with hundreds of thousands of white dots haphazardly surrounding an irregular shaped polygon.
“From what the Ministry database says,” Talbot began, “most of the population of five hundred million is centered on the capital, Haroka, but there are settlements scattered across the planet.” The image zoomed out a bit and another icon appeared. “An orbital station in low middle orbit keeps position above the capital. All personnel and goods are transferred to shuttles at the station, which then make planet fall at Akintola Spaceport near Haroka. Otherwise, vessels are not allowed to land on the planet’s surface.”
“Zoom into the large northern part of the continent,” Beckenbaur said. “There is a town called Kularin, about eight hundred kilometers north-north west of Haroka. There, that’s it. Bandele said he would go to Kularin when released from his sentence.”
Talbot leaned back in her chair. She tapped a few keys and the two hemispheres merged to make a globe. “We’ll enter the atmosphere over the eastern hemisphere moving north, and then fly over the pole and straight into Kularin.” A line curved around the globe showing the flight path.
“Our velocity will be a hundred thousand klicks per hour relative to Akaisha’s stellar primary when we emerge from hyperspace.” She tapped a few keys and the image zoomed out to show half the system. “We’ll need to adjust our trajectory; I’m plotting a course so we fly straight toward Akaisha and emerge at the planet’s hyperspace limit.” A line appeared on the system map showing a slightly curved line from the outer system to the edge of Akaisha’s hyperdrive limit, denoted by a red circle about a hundred thousand kilometers from the planet. Every significant mass distorted space-time enough to make using a hyperdrive not only risky, but also dangerous, so any faster-than-light travel had to proceed outside of these distortions. However, because gravity was the only detectable phenomenon in hyperspace, the gravity wells of stars and planets provided navigation points to plot a safe course.
She tapped at her keyboard and the numbers appeared on the HUD. “It will take us about nineteen minutes to decelerate to entry velocity. Our shunt into normal space will reveal our initial position, and we’ll be flying for fifty three minutes inside Akaisha’s hyperspace limit until we decelerate.”
“You’re saying it could get hairy,” Beckenbaur said.
“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. Everything depends on the electronic countermeasures.”
“Why not come in faster and spend more time decelerating? That way you have a greater velocity when traversing Akaisha’s hyperdrive limit.”
“The operation of the reactionless drive creates its own gravity signature; it is essentially an artificial black hole manipulated to project its gravity in the desired direction. The drive can be masked using the electronic countermeasures, but the possibility of discovery is greater.”
“So we coast in.”
“That’s right. Shut down all major systems and put as much power as possible into the electronic warfare to mask our presence or project it to another location. Even then, we reflect visible light, so the hull has a low albedo factor. ” She smiled. “But the fun doesn’t stop there!”
“Okay,” Beckenbaur gulped.
“Atmospheric entry, like a hyperspace shunt, shows up like a neon sign in sensors. They can easily track us until the energy released from entry dissipates. After that point, we’ll need to contend with ground-based sensors and commsense satellites in low orbit. In addition, armed forces on the surface can determine our possible flight path and landing point using our trajectory, speed, and intelligence about where the native inhabitants usually meet any incoming tech smugglers. Any blockading vessels in low orbit can use data feeds from the satellites and their own sensors to locate us, and surface forces can move toward our predicted landing site. Again, much depends on the electronic countermeasures.”
“So, what’s the strategy?”
“We keep moving. You need to exit the Trieste quickly when we land near Kularin. After that, we try to keep in communications range. If we lose communications, we need to determine a fallback rendezvous.”
“What does ‘quickly’ mean.” Beckenbaur was afraid to ask.
“Well, the Trieste won’t actually land, as such,” Talbot said with a smile. “You’ll ride the extraction cargo pallet out the rear cargo-bay doors.”
“Nice.”
“I think you’ll need the talents of Dylan and Danner; they can get your stuff loaded on the pallet and will accompany you on the surface.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
“What is it, Doc?” Jake asked. Beckenbaur stood in the Trieste’s cargo hold with Jake and the twins Dylan and Danner.
Beckenbaur undid the clasps and pulled the tarp off the vehicle.
“Sooweet!” one of the twins sang.
“You said it, brother,” the other twin said. “It’s a Spez Maxxor, latest model by the look of it: 1.764 megajoule motor; top speed of 120 kph, redundant fusion-cell power; variable transmission; six wheel all-wheel drive; solid polymer tires; full-environment radiation and bio toxin shielded cabin with integrated airlock. Where did you think you were goin’, Doc?”
The vehicle looked like a long tube with a hexagonal cross section, with four wheels at the rear and two up front. The front end looked bluntly rounded off and had a narrow front window that extended down the sides for two meters. An airlock door on the right side allowed access. The tires looked large and knobby; the vehicle paint a dull gray.
“I’m a little paranoid,” Beckenbaur replied, “she’s also armed and armored. Climb up top and take a look.”
While one of the twins climbed up on the vehicle, Jake stood by with his hands in the pockets of his coveralls. “Can I come, too?”
“If the Captain says,” Beckenbaur replied. “There’s enough room for eight.”
“You’re kidding me!” the twin on the vehicle exclaimed.
“What?” asked the other twin.
“You’re fucking kidding me!”
“What?”
“Is this for real, Doc?”
“Yessir!”
“An HP3-Gorgon 500 kilojoule plasma projector!”
“You are paranoid,” the twin on the deck said.
“I’ve spent some time on Akaisha; I know what the place is like. That’s why I hired the Trieste. I need you two to come with me.”
“Gladly!” both of the twins replied at once.
“How can I tell you two apart?” Beckenbaur asked.
“I’m Dylan,” said one twin as he climbed down off the vehicle.
“And I’m Danner,” said the other.
“Yes, but how can I tell you apart?”
“I’m the handsome one!” Danner said with a grin. Dylan punched him in the shoulder.
Beckenbaur shook his head. “All right. We need to get this on the extraction pallet.”
“No problem, Doc,” Jake said. “We’ll turn off the gravity in the cargo hold, maneuver the vehicle into position using the cranes, and fasten her down.”
“Get your stuff in the vehicle, boys. I want to be ready when the Captain says we need to be.” Beckenbaur retreated to his own cabin to retrieve his duffel. Heather was there packing her own bags.
“You were one of the best sensor operators on the Bering,” he said. “I’ll need you to come along.”
“You think I’m going to miss this?” She hugged him hard, and planted a wet kiss on his lips. “Thanks for this. I admit I was afraid at first, but I’ve realized I really need to be here.”
Before he could say anything, Captain Talbot’s voice sounded over the intercom. “Fifteen minutes to shunt. Come up to the command deck, Doctor, if you want to watch the fun.”
“We’re on our way, Captain.” Beckenbaur and Ferrel hauled their bags to the vehicle, then made their way forward and up to the command deck.
“Are you prepared?” Talbot asked.
“Yes, Captain.”
“Three minutes,” one of the command crew said. Talbot had introduced the Trieste’s navigator as Nick Teel; he was a tall, slender man with a shaved head.
Talbot pressed a key on her console. “Krenlar? I want you to cycle almost all power to the electronic warfare after we shunt. Just keep the hull shields up.”
“Aye, Captain,” the engineer answered in his gravelly voice.
“Nick, I want a full strength dampening field as soon as possible after we emerge from hyperspace,” Talbot said.
“Aye.”
“Jerrit? You stay frosty; be prepared to engage in evasive maneuvers.”
“Aye, Captain.” The pilot was a Yathan Hominin, female, with golden-hued skin and a shapely figure.
Talbot hit a key on her console. “Okay boys; get to the turrets, just in case.”
“Yes, ma’am,” one of the twins answered.
The clock on the HUD ticked down to zero. Beckenbaur felt an instant of disorientation and double vision, then saw thousands of multi-colored streaks shrink to individual stars in the forward portal. A blue-white ball floated in the star field directly ahead of them; the world had already begun to grow larger as they approached.
The Borrega Test Page 17
